November 7th, 2007 Curt Monash
I followed up with Keith Collins of SAS today about SAS-in-the-database, expanding on what I learned or thought I did when we talked last month. Here’s the scoop:
SAS users do a lot of data filtering, aka data preparation, in SAS. These have WHERE clauses, just like SQL. However, only some of them map to actual SQL WHERE clauses. SAS is now implementing many of the rest as UDFs (User-Defined Functions), one DBMS at a time, starting with Teradata. In addition, SAS users can write custom filters that get registered as UDFs. This capability will be released with SAS 9.2. (The timing on SAS 9.2 is in line with the comment thread to my prior post on SAS-in-the-DBMS.) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Analytics and analytic technologies, Data warehousing, Database theory and practice, Intel, Relational database management systems, SAS Institute | No Comments »
June 28th, 2006 Curt Monash
I really like this short white paper, which carries the personal byline of Stuart Frost. Stuart is DATallegro’s CEO, and also the guy who does analyst relations for them (at least in my case). Part of it just does a concise job of spelling out some of the DATallegro story. But the rest is about the comparison between Intel’s new dual-core “Woodcrest” Xeons and their single-core predecessors. Not only does it give credible statistics, it gives understanding of the reasons behind them.
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Posted in DATAllegro, Data warehouse appliances, Intel, Memory-centric data management, Relational database management systems | 2 Comments »
May 8th, 2006 Curt Monash
I have finally finished and uploaded the long-awaited white paper on memory-centric data management.
This is the project for which I origially coined the term “memory-centric data management,” after realizing that the prevalent “in-memory DBMS” creates all sorts of confusion about how and whether data persists on disk. The white paper clarifies and updates points I have been making about memory-centric data management since last summer. Sponsors included:
- Applix, vendors of in-memory/memory-centric MOLAP tool TM1
- Progress Software, vendors of ObjectStore, an OODBMS that has more impressive references in-memory or otherwise memory-centric than it does in classical disk-based configurations, and also of the Apama stream processing products
- SAP, vendors of the BI Accelerator functionality of SAP NetWeaver, or whatever tortured name they want to give it this month — basically, that’s a very cool in-memory columnar data mart technology
- Solid Information Technology, vendor of hybrid in-memory/disk-based OLTP RDBMS. Historically focused on the embedded systems market, especially telecom and networking, they’ve recently been in the news because of a deal with MySQL that is designed to extend their reach.
- Intel, makers of the processors used to run a lot of the other sponsors’ products (including all BI Accelerator installations to date).
If there’s one area in my research I’m not 100% satisfied with, it may be the question of where the true hardware bottlenecks to memory-centric data management lie (it’s obvious that the bottleneck to disk-centric data management is random disk access). Is it processor interconnect (around 1 GB/sec)? Is it processor-to-cache connections (around 5 GB/sec)? My prior pronouncements, the main body of the white paper, and the Intel Q&A appendix to the white paper may actually have slightly different spins on these points.
And by the way — the current hard limit on RAM/board isn’t 2^64 bytes, but a “mere” 2^40. But don’t worry; it will be up to 2^48 long before anybody actually puts 256 gigabytes under the control of a single processor.
Posted in Cognos and Applix TM1, Intel, MOLAP, Memory-centric data management, Open source RDBMS, Products and vendors, Progress, Apama, and DataDirect, Relational database management systems, SAP, BI Accelerator, and MaxDB, solidDB | 1 Comment »